Age, Biography and Wiki

Donald Friend (Donald Stuart Leslie Friend) was born on 6 February, 1915 in Cremorne, New South Wales, Australia, is an Australian artist and diarist. Discover Donald Friend's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is he in this year and how he spends money? Also learn how he earned most of networth at the age of 74 years old?

Popular As Donald Stuart Leslie Friend
Occupation N/A
Age 74 years old
Zodiac Sign Aquarius
Born 6 February, 1915
Birthday 6 February
Birthplace Cremorne, New South Wales, Australia
Date of death 16 August, 1989
Died Place N/A
Nationality Australia

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 6 February. He is a member of famous artist with the age 74 years old group.

Donald Friend Height, Weight & Measurements

At 74 years old, Donald Friend height not available right now. We will update Donald Friend's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible.

Physical Status
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Dating & Relationship status

He is currently single. He is not dating anyone. We don't have much information about He's past relationship and any previous engaged. According to our Database, He has no children.

Family
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Donald Friend Net Worth

His net worth has been growing significantly in 2023-2024. So, how much is Donald Friend worth at the age of 74 years old? Donald Friend’s income source is mostly from being a successful artist. He is from Australia. We have estimated Donald Friend's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets.

Net Worth in 2024 $1 Million - $5 Million
Salary in 2024 Under Review
Net Worth in 2023 Pending
Salary in 2023 Under Review
House Not Available
Cars Not Available
Source of Income artist

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Timeline

1915

Donald Stuart Leslie Friend (6 February 1915 – 16 August 1989) was an Australian artist and diarist who lived much of his life overseas.

He has been the subject of controversy since the posthumous publication of diaries in which he wrote about how he sexually abused children during his time in Bali.

Born in Sydney, Friend grew up in the artistic circle of his bohemian mother and showed early talent both as an artist and as a writer.

1930

Much of Friend's life and career was spent outside Australia, in places as diverse as Nigeria (late 1930s, where he served as financial advisor to the Ogoga of Ikerre), Italy (several visits in the 1950s), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka; late 1950s – early 1960s), and Bali (from 1968 until his final return to Sydney in 1980).

1931

He studied with Sydney Long (1931) and Antonio Dattilo Rubbo (1934–1935), and later in London (1936–1937) at the Westminster School of Art with Mark Gertler and Bernard Meninsky.

1940

Friend's critical reputation in the 1940s equalled those of William Dobell and Russell Drysdale, but by the time of his death it had sunk so low that his work was totally absent from the 1988 Australian Bicentennial exhibition, a show meant to include every artist of importance since white settlement.

1945

He also served as an official war artist in Labuan and Balikpapan in 1945.

After the war he lived for a time in the Sydney mansion-boarding house Merioola, exhibiting with the Merioola Group.

1950

During World War II he served as a gunner with the AIF, and while stationed at Albury began a friendship with Russell Drysdale, which led to their joint discovery of Hill End, a quasi-abandoned gold mining village near Bathurst, New South Wales, which in the 1950s became something of an artists' colony.

1955

Despite winning the Blake Prize for Religious Art in 1955, Friend made "no attempt to disguise the homoeroticism which underlay much of his work".

He was well known for studies of the young male nude, including nude male children, as well as his wit.

His facility as a draughtsman may have contributed to the undervaluing of his work, which art scholar Lou Klepac said "always looked too easy – decorative, flowing and natural".

1960

In the mid-1960s, Robert Hughes described him as "one of the two finest draughtsmen of the nude in Australia", and noted his humanism and lack of sentimentality, while still maintaining that he was not a major artist.

Volume Four dealt in part with Friend's time in Bali in the 1960s and 1970s.

Publicity claimed "[T]his volume confirms Friend's quicksilver creative brilliance and extraordinary insight. He is perhaps Australia's most important twentieth-century diarist".

Friend openly wrote about his pederasty and paedophilia, depicting himself in his journal as "a middle-aged pederast who's going to seed".

His relationships were mostly with adolescent boys.

But in the 1960s Friend wrote in his diary of a 10-year-old boy: "[He] spent the night with me. I hope life will continue forever to offer me delicious surprises ... and that I will always be delighted and surprised. He goes about the act of love with a charmingly self-possessed grace: gaily, affectionately, and enthusiastically. And in these matters he's very inventive and not at all sentimental for all the caresses."

A few boys became his lifelong friends, particularly Attilio Guarracino, whom he met when Guarracino was 19 years old.

The inclusion of material about his sexual relations with children led to discussion of his pederasty and criticism of inclusion of victims' names.

1990

Barry Pearce, however, writing in the study which accompanied Friend's posthumous retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1990, said that Hughes' judgement seemed harsh and called for a re-evaluation of Friend as an artist whose "contribution to the richness of Australian art is due for much greater recognition".

Friend published a number of illustrated books, almost all in limited editions.

2001

Friend's diaries were published posthumously in four volumes from 2001 to 2006 by the National Library of Australia.

He had kept a diary since the age of 14.

It chronicled in half a million words a life peopled with such artists as Drysdale, Margaret Olley, Jeffrey Smart and Brett Whiteley.

2009

In 2009, documentary film-maker Kerry Negara released A Loving Friend, which focused on Friend's sexual relationships with "houseboys" in Bali, and through interviews with artists, critics and academics sought to establish that the "arts elite of Australia continue to deny any wrongdoing on Friend's part".

At least one person named in the diary began legal action against the National Library of Australia.